Now that you mentioned March 09, I looked back to see that my lowest was on March 09, 2009 (I kept a diary). It coincided with the day the market hit bottom. On that day, the Dow dropped to 6547, the Nasdaq to 1269, and the SP500 to 677.
Since that day, my portfolio is up a bit more than your NW number above, not counting RE whose values are so illiquid I do not even bother to think about. With the S&P at 1226 as of Fri Nov 5, 2010, had one gone "all in", he would have made 81% gain! Of course most of us have gained less than that, except for younger people who are still accumulating.
I have been tracking our net worth almost daily since September 23, 2008.
I have everything entered in an on-line account aggregating service, so all I have to do is update totals and cut and paste once daily. There is a little bit of a fudge factor because I only update cash account totals a couple of times a month, but close enough to track general flows.
Our balances hit their low on March 9, 2009 as well.
As of November 5, 2010 our net worth was up over 90% compared to the March 09 figure.
A significant part of that appreciation came in the form of a very well-timed real-estate investment. We purchased our apartment at the exact bottom of a significant dip in the local market, and things have been inflating at bubble-like rates since then. But I am pretty confident that we could get the price I have estimated as the current value as listing prices for comparable units are now 10-20% higher than my estimate.
Even without the real estate appreciation, our retirement and college savings accounts are double what they were in March 09. We have made regular contributions to both, but much of the gain is the result of the market rebound, helped along by some rebalancing.
When I have mentioned the daily tracking before, some people have found that to be overly detailed, but in my case it has actually provided me with solid evidence of the benefits of a buy and hold strategy. I can see how my accounts dropped in value day after day after day duriing the worst of the crash, but also how they ramped back up again as things started to improve. I am so glad I held firm and did not sell during the downturn. We actually invested a significant sum in the kids 529s in October/November 2008, which turned out to be a very prudent choice -- those accounts are now more than double what they were at the time.
lhamo
